5.3 CHALLENGES TO HIGHER LEARNING INSTITUTION LEADERSHIP IN ASSURING QUALITY OF EDUCATION
5.3.1 Inadequate competence of incoming students
Pre-higher educational academic achievement and preparation of students is vital for them to succeed in achieving quality education and enhancing HLIs' mission. There is widespread agreement that the quality of higher education is considerably determined by the competencies of admitted students. Success in higher education is strongly linked to pre-higher education students' achievement (Kuh, 2007; Michaelowa, 2007).
The quality of higher education is specifically related to the quality of secondary schools (Michaelowa, 2007). HLIs who admit qualified students are more likely to see an improvement in the quality of these students’ education. Adequate preparation of admitted students in terms of their psychological and academic readiness to face the rigorous teaching and learning environment of higher education is essential for their academic success.
As depicted in Table 5.3, the majority of respondents reasoned that the poor educational background of students who joined HLIs was a significant challenge to HLI leadership in assuring the quality of education. Furthermore, most of the leadership and instructors interviewed across the four HLIs voiced their concern regarding the poor capacity of incoming students (TLL2, TLL3, TLL4, MLL2, MLL3, MLL4, AS2, QAr2, QAr3, QAr4, AS3, AS4). As one of the interviewees reported:
The learning capability of incoming students is low; admitting many students having inadequate academic preparation is something like sowing on uncultivated farming land. It also incurs extra cost, energy, and time on the
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part of the higher learning institutions to mitigate their deficiencies through remedial classes (QAr3).
In this regard, an instructor interviewee portrayed the challenges facing his university as follows:
Many students joined our department without adequate academic grounding and faced tough courses. During the teaching and learning process, due to their low competency, the students are not fully engaged; their class participation and learning motivation are low. Moreover, their communication skill, especially in the English language, which is the medium of instruction in Ethiopian HLIs, is poor. In such circumstances, we face difficulties in implementing the student-centred teaching methodology (AS2).
In such circumstances, it might be difficult for HLI leadership and the instructors to educate and produce competent professionals who become fruitful in their future occupations. However, one of the academic staff interviewees opposed this viewpoint, stating:
The problem of the incompetence of incoming students is a vicious circle. I heard many academics give the poor academic background of incoming students as a cause for the poor quality of education. Of course, it has an implication for the quality of teaching and learning; but these students were taught by teachers who were graduated from their institution, which are trained by them. Instead of complaining about the performance of incoming students, they should make efforts to produce competent teachers who can produce competent students. At the same time they need to empower low-performing students by designing remedial measures by identifying the weak side of these students. In my view, instead of pointing our finger at others, it is better to assess our approaches to teaching and learning. So, the HLI leadership should design a system where academically incompetent students are being supported by their teachers (AS4).
Another interviewee supplemented this opinion, pointing out that
conducting research is one of the job descriptions of academic staff.
Conducting research and identifying a problem is not the end target of research; it should also need to propose a solution to the problem. Therefore, in order to improve the capacity of those students who joined higher education having low academic backgrounds; academic staff members should design a research-based remedial strategy to improve the potential of these students (MLL4).
To know more, the researcher analysed supporting documents regarding the students' pre-higher education academic standards, and the quality of education in general. The findings are presented in the following subsection.
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5.3.1.1 Low quality of general education (Grades 1–12)
Based on the new Ethiopian education roadmap (MoE, 2018), the country introduced a new education system which was implemented in September 2019 (the starting month of the Ethiopian academic year). Accordingly, the current education system uses a 6–2–4 model in which there are six years of primary education, two years of junior secondary, and four years of secondary education. Finally, the national higher education entrance exam is written in Grade 12. Based on their grades and the admission criteria set by the MoE, students are admitted either to HLIs or to technical and vocational education and training (TVET) centres. The duration for higher education is four to six years for undergraduates, two years for master’s level and four years for PhD level. TVET centres offer courses for students from levels 1 to 5 and further education and training up to PhD level.
Over the last decade, considerable efforts have been made to increase access to primary and secondary education. However, the quantitative expansion of the Ethiopian education sector has brought serious challenges to its quality in developing the skills, knowledge, and attitudes of students. Nowadays, the dominant question posed by policymakers and many stakeholders in the education sector has become how to improve students' competency in terms of their skills, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour in addition to the overall outcomes of education. As a result, educational executives and policymakers need essential information to arrive at informed judgements regarding students' competency levels in the system. To assess and measure the status of student learning attainment in general education, by taking Grades 4, 8, 10, and 12 as particular levels of investigation, an Ethiopian national learning assessment for primary and secondary education was carried out in various years starting from 2000 (baseline) by the National Learning Assessment Agency and the MoE. National learning assessment is an exercise designed to demonstrate the level of attainment of the entire education scheme or a clearly defined part of it (Kellaghan & Greany, 2004). It focuses on measuring students' achievements in knowledge, skills, attitudes, level of understanding, and intellectual growth. It also provides information to stakeholders about the quality of the educational services and students' learning, and helps to improve teaching and learning by understanding and addressing disparities between genders and locations, and to identify support needed to improve the quality of students' learning.
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According to the 1994 Education and Training Policy (FDRGE, 1994), Grades 4 and 8 are the terminations of the first cycle and second cycle of primary education, respectively. Based on the national learning assessments conducted in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2015, students' performance in Grade 4 in four key subject areas and Grade 8 in five key subject areas in terms of percentage mean scores at the national level are given in Table 5.4 (for Grade 4) and Table 5.5 (for Grade 8) below:
Table 5.4: Ethiopian national learning assessment mean scores by year for Grade 4 students
Subject areas
Score percentages per year
2000 2004 2008 2012 2015
English 40.46 38.68 36.5 38.87 39.67
Basic Reading 64.25 64.49 43.9 42.96 47.00
Mathematics 39.31 39.70 40.3 37.06 51.32
Environmental Science 48.14 51.74 42.6 41.21 40.98
Composite average score 47.94 48.48 40.9 40.06 44.74 Source: NAE, 2001; NOE, 2004; GEQAEA, 2008; NEAEA, 2013; 2016; 2019
Note: NAE: National Agency for Examinations; NOE: National Organization for Examinations; GEQAEA:
General Education Quality Assurance and Examinations Agency; NEAEA: National Educational Assessment and Examinations Agency
In Table 5.4 it can be noted that the overall achievements of Grade 4 students: 47.94%, 48.48%, 40.9%, 40.06%, and 44.74% for the years 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2015 respectively, were below the minimum requirement of 50 (the minimum pass mark set by the 1994 Education and Training Policy). In particular, the mean percentage scores for Mathematics and English – which are considered the two core subjects in primary school curricula – were significantly lower than the minimum requirement. The assessment also revealed that female students scored well below male students in all the subjects, and rural students’ scores were lower than those of urban students in the key subjects and in the composite average score.
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Table 5.5: Ethiopian national learning assessment mean scores by year for Grade 8 students
Subject areas
Score percentages per year
2000 2004 2008 2012 2015
Biology 47.16 41.34 38.3 42.10 46.26
Chemistry 40.27 40.10 34.7 36.44 41.29
English 38.74 41.07 38.4 36.87 40.31
Mathematics 38.23 40.93 34.1 25.53 35.20
Physics - 35.32 32.2 34.45 42.58
Composite A.S 41.10 39.74 35.6 35.32 41.14
Source: NAE, 2001a; NOE, 2004a; GEQAEA, 2008a; NEAEA, 2013; 2016; 2019
As shown in Table 5.5, the overall students' performance in all subjects and years fell below the required score, which is 50. The fact that test scores were lower than the expected score implies that the quality of primary and secondary schooling is low. This has an enormous influence on the national development effort of the country.
According to Fuller (1986) and Fagerlind and Saha (1989), a positive correlation exists between student attainment results and the level of economic development of a country. The assessment also revealed that the mean score differences between females and males in all subjects were statistically significant in favour of males.
Moreover, urban pupils excelled in comparison to rural students in the subjects and in the composite average score.
To assess the achievement of students in secondary school, the Ethiopian national learning assessments of Grade 10 and 12 students were conducted in 2010, 2014, and 2018 by the NEAEA in five key subject areas. The results are presented in Table 5.6 below.
Table 5.6: Ethiopian national learning assessment mean scores by year for Grade 10 and Grade 12 students
Subject areas
Score percentages per year
Grade 10 Grade 12
2010 2014 2018 2010 2014 2018
Biology 40.3 46.9 38.3 55.5 55.8 50.0
Chemistry 36.1 41.4 34.6 49.1 47.7 43.7
English 37.4 42.6 32.0 43.4 45.2 45.6
Mathematics 34.7 37.0 33.2 54.3 45.3 39.7
Physics 31.2 35.5 29.4 36.6 33.1 30.1
Average 36.0 40.6 33.3 47.8 45.5 41.7
Source: NAE, 2010; NEAEA, 2019
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The students' academic achievement as measured by the mean scores in five subjects, namely Biology, English, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics, was found to be less than 50%, the minimum expected achievement level. The average national mean score of students in the five subjects was only 47.8%, 45.5%, and 41.7% for Grade 12 and 36%, 40.6%, and 33.3% for Grade 10 in the years 2010, 2014, and 2018, respectively.
The assessment also revealed that in all subjects in both grades, the performance of boys was better than that of girls and the differences were statistically significant in all cases.
The Ethiopian General Secondary Education Certificate Examination is written at the end of Grade 10 to select students who qualify for preparatory education and to certify the completion of general secondary education. According to the MoE (2018a;
2016/17; 2017), 73.9%, 70.4% and 64.8% of students achieved 50% and above (2.0 and above of 4.0 cumulative grade points), for the years 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 respectively. In the Ethiopian Higher Education Entrance Certificate Examination, which is written in Grade 12 to place students in HLIs, 49.5%, 41.3% and 52.9% of students achieved 50% and above (350 and above of 700 grade points) for the years 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 respectively. From these results, it can be observed that the achievements of both Grade 10 and 12 students were unsatisfactory.
In 2010, a study was carried out for the first time by the Research Training Institute International in collaboration with the MoE, the Improving Quality in Primary Education Programme, and other stakeholders of the education sector. In this study, Ethiopia's early grade reading assessment of Grades 2 and 3 demonstrated that a significant percentage of students were not reading or comprehending at the expected oral reading fluency rate. The percentage of children (national average result) who were unable to read a single word was 33.9% for Grade 2 and 20% for Grade 3. In addition, higher percentages of children (47.7% for Grade 2 and 30.2% for Grade 3) were unable to comprehend simple stories or answer a single word correctly in the reading comprehension test (Research Training Institute International, 2010).
In 2018, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in collaboration with the MoE and other educational stakeholders conducted a study to assess the capacity of students to read with increasing fluency and comprehension. Accordingly, the assessment study revealed that of Grade 2 students, only 24.3% in 2014, 28% in 2016, and 25% in 2018
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scored the required standard. For Grade 3 students, only 38.3% in 2014, 40.5% in 2016, and 39.9% in 2018 scored the required standard. A detail of the findings for the given benchmark levels is presented in Table 5.7.
Table 5.7: Overall percentages of Grade 2 and Grade 3 students’ achievement at benchmark levels by year and grade
Benchmark levels 2014 2016 2018
Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 2 Grade 3 Reading fluently with full
comprehension 5.3 6.8 5.3 8.3 4.2 8.1
Reading with increasing fluency
and comprehension 19.0 31.5 22.7 32.2 20.8 31.8
Reading slowly and with limited
comprehension 24.8 28.5 32.1 35.3 28.3 32.4
Zero scores 50.3 34.0 39.9 24.2 46.7 27.7
Source: NEAEA, 2019; AIR, 2019
On the other hand, in addition to the early grade students' assessments of reading capacity, their fundamental mathematical skills were assessed in 2016 and the average score for both grades was 71.92% (NEAEA, 2019), which is considered a better achievement when compared to their reading capacity. In all assessment scores, the achievement of girls was lower than that of boys, and the scores of students from underserved regions were lower than those of the other regions.
Overall, the study pointed out that the reasons for the low achievement of students were:
Low capacity of parents on providing basic educational materials to their children sufficiently;
Long distance of schools from students' homes;
Lack of educational support by parents to children when they are home;
Low level of parents' economic and educational level, economic and social problems of children;
School closure due to verity reasons;
Students and teachers absenteeism;
The gap on curriculum portion coverage;
Students' low interest on learning and misconduct of students;
Limitation of educational supervision;
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Shortage of qualified teachers and low motivation of teachers;
Limitation on providing sufficient on the job training to teachers;
Lack of sufficient pedagogical centres, an insufficient supply of education reference books;
Poor implementation of continues assessment;
Insufficient or poor educational infrastructure;
Incompetence of school administrators.
It can be clearly observed from the scores of the national learning assessments of Grades 4, 8, 10 and 12, the certificate examinations and the early grade reading assessments of Grades 2 and 3, that students' achievements are not satisfactory and this implies that the quality of general education is below standard. The poor level of student achievement in general education also has a noticeable impact on the quality of education at higher education levels. Evidence indicates that having basic mastery of reading and comprehension in early grades is essential for overall academic success. Children who are poor at reading in the first few grades are more likely to repeat and eventually drop out or will fall behind others for the rest of their educational lives. The poor results in national learning assessments suggest that students in general education have markedly low academic performance and that the majority of these students transfer from one tier of the educational pyramid to the next without adequate academic attainment at any level.
Most scholars who were interviewed by the researcher agreed on the importance of quality at the lower levels of educational hierarchies. One interviewee suggested that
“to improve the quality of higher education, it is vital to devote more effort towards improving the quality of education at the lower levels starting from kindergarten’’
(PRF1). This idea was voiced by many of the interviewees (TLL1, TLL4, MLL1, MLL2, MLL3, QAr2, QAr3, QAr4, AS2, AS3, AS4). Interviewee PRF1 elaborated:
It is believed, by many scholars, that the quality of student learning is the outcome of the aggregate efforts made at the various levels of educational hierarchies. The quality of education in HLIs is closely related to the quality of the education system in the lower tiers of the education ladders. Poor quality education provision in the lower cycles of the education system inevitably has a repercussion on the quality of higher education. The poor quality of the general education system is a big challenge to higher learning institutions’
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leadership in their endeavour to assuring the quality of higher education (PRF1).
The overall findings of the above analyses highlight that the competence of incoming students from the pre-higher education classes is likely to have an implication for students’ achievement levels in HLIs. It is also noteworthy that such situations may cause a serious challenge to HLIs’ leadership in assuring the quality of education in their institutions. Therefore, to attain quality education at the higher education level, it is vital to give attention to improving the quality of general education.